Monthly Archives: January 2021

Animals Are Beautiful People (1974)

Posted on January 20, 2021 | Leave a comment

Animals Are Beautiful People
Directed by Jamie Uys
Written by Jamie Uys
South Africa/1974
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

 

The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists. — H. Allen Smith

This documentary takes an amusing look at the animals of the African desert.

This nature documentary looks at wildlife of the Namib and Kahlihari deserts and how they survive with minimal water in bad times and luxuriate during the rainy season.  Apparently, many of the scenes were staged.   This did make for a really humorous movie however.

Uys also directed The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980), a movie close to my heart, and this documentary has lot  of that film’s charm.  The nature photography is interesting and beautiful.  I would not recommend this to the student of actual animal behavior but it’s a pretty fun watch.

 

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Posted in 1974

The Godfather: Part II (1974)

Posted on January 18, 2021 | 2 comments

The Godfather: Part II
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Written by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo from Puzo’s novel
1974/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Tom Hagen: It would be like trying to kill the President; there’s no way we can get to him.
Michael Corleone: Tom, you know you surprise me. If anything in this life is certain – if history has taught us anything – it’s that you can kill *anybody*.

I think I prefer the first film’s story line but certainly this second film is at least its equal in beautiful images and music and powerful acting.

The film traces young immigrant Vito Corleone’s (Robert De Niro) journey from grocery clerk to neighborhood bigman in the first decades of the Twentieth century and the gradual descent of the Corleone family after Michael (Al Pacino) takes over as godfather.  The movie kind of toggles back and forth in time.

The story starts in Corleone, Sicily where Vito’s entire family is wiped out in a local feud.  He sets out for America, seemingly alone.  After a few years, he has a growing family.  He loses his job as a grocery clerk because neighborhood boss Fanucci has a nephew who needs it.  Vito soon meets Clemenza and the two become partners in crime.  Eventually, when Fanucci comes around demanding protection money, Vito takes him out of the picture entirely and Vito is soon the respected man about town.  We see his close bond with his wife and children.

The action in Michael’s story takes place in the 1950’s. It begins with an outdoor party on Lake Tahoe honoring Michael’s son’s First Communion which serves a similar purpose to the wedding reception that begins the first film.  The family is big in the casino business as well as it’s more obviously criminal enterprises.  We see Michael’s eyes slowly grow dead as family is replaced by business interests and the death count needed to maintain power mounts.  With Diane Keaton as Michael’s wife Kay, Talia Shire as Connie Corleone and John Casale as his brother Fredo as well as a huge cast of fine character actors including Lee Strasberg as investor Hyman Roth and Michael V. Gazzo as turncoat Frankie Pantangeli.

I enjoy the Robert De Niro parts of this movie more than the Al Pacino parts.  For Vito, family is everything.  But Michael puts business first. Since all the characters, including the establishment ones, are corrupt or criminals or both, it was hard for me to care what happened to anyone.  But make no mistake, the film makes good use of its three hours, the visuals and music are gorgeous, and this cast cannot be beat.  Recommended.

The Godfather: Part II won Academy Awards for Best Picture; Best Director; Best Supporting Actor (De Niro); Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; and Best Music, Original Dramatic Score.  It was nominated in the categories of: Best Actor (Pacino); Best Actor (Michael V. Gazzo); Best Supporting Actor (Strasberg); Best Supporting Actress (Talia Shire); and Best Costume Design.

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1974

General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait (1974)

Posted on January 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait
Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Written by Barbet Schroeder
1974/France/Switzerland
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

 

Idi Amin: [a Telegram to Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania] I want to assure you that I love you very much, and if you had been a woman I would have considered marrying you although your head is full of grey hairs, but as you are a man that possibility does not arise.

 

You can’t help being entertained by the antics of Idi Amin, even knowing the depth of his evil.

Barbet Schroeder agreed that Amin, the brutal dictator oppressing and murdering his fellow Ugandans, could arrange the scenes shot for this documentary so long as Amin himself appeared in the scene.  Amin acts like a buffoon throughout.  My favorite part is where he demonstrates his strategy for taking the Golan Heights back from Israel using a tank, some of the most bedraggled soldiers ever seen, and a helicopter.  He plays the accordian and demonstrates traditional dance moves.  He also takes the crew out to visit his extensive collection of crocodiles. We learn from the narration that the bodies of his opponents wound up in their stomachs. The movie closes with him organizing a charity drive for the U.K. where he has heard the people are hungry.  This movie is absolutely fascinating.  You really cannot take your eyes from the flamboyant, charismatic dictator and his bizarre fantasy world.   Many of his statements are so outlandish even he laughs.  But you can also see the evil peeking through at points.  It’s an unsettling experience.  It is estimated that Amin’s policies of political oppression and ethnic persecution killed between 100,000 and 500,000 Ugandans.

 

 

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Posted in Movie Reviews

1974

Posted on January 16, 2021 | 4 comments

Best Director-winning Francis Ford Coppola’s critically-acclaimed gangster epic sequel The Godfather, Part II (1974), — actually a prequel — became the first ‘sequel’ to win Best Picture. It would help launch the trend toward blockbuster sequels. It was the first instance that a sequel received the subtitle of Part II.

At the Oscar ceremony in 1975, Howard Hawks received an Honorary Oscar inscribed “A master American filmmaker whose creative efforts hold a distinguished place in world cinema.” Jean Renoir received one that said “A genius who, with grace, responsibility and enviable devotion through silent film, sound film, feature, documentary and television has won the world’s admiration.”

We lost Samuel Goldwyn, Patricia Collinge, Betty Compson, Duke Ellington, Agnes Moorhead, Donald Crisp, Otto Kruger, Walter Brennan, Vittorio De Sica, Pietro Germi, Anatole Litvak, and Jack Benny.  Chevy Chase, Jeff Goldblum, Edward James Olmos. and John Rhys Davies made their film debuts.

Following impeachment hearings started on May 9th  Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency on August 9th, making him the first and only President to do so. His vice president, Gerald Ford, took office after him and soon gave Nixon a full pardon for his wrongdoing.

Inflation continued to spiral out of control around the world reaching 11.3% in the USA and 17.2% in the UK as the global recession deepened.  A 55 MPH maximum speed limit was imposed in the U.S. to conserve gasoline.  Daylight Savings Time started in January to conserve power.  President Ford announced an amnesty program for Vietnam War deserters and draft evaders.  Heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

“The Way We Were” spent three weeks on the Billboard charts making it the number one single of 1974 in the US.  There were no Pulitzer Prizes awarded for fiction or drama.  Time magazine named King Faisal of Saudi Arabia “man of the year for 1974.” The magazine said the king was “a principal factor” in quadrupling oil prices, and that he “holds more power than any other leader to lower or raise, them” in the future.

Syria and Israel agreed to a ceasefire on the Golan Heights on June 5. Isabel Peron, Juan Peron’s third wife, became President of Argentina after the death of her husband, making her the first female president in the world.  Soviet authorities expelled author Alexander Solzhenitsyn,  revoking his Russian citizenship.

The Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang was discovered at Xi’an, China. The skeleton “Lucy”, a distant ancestor of man, was discovered in Ethiopia.

The Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner was developed.  Pocket calculators appeared in the shops.  A very primitive word processor came in use.  The UPC bar code was introduced.

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Here is the short list I will pick from for the year.  Suggestions and warnings welcome.

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Posted in Movie Reviews

1973 Recap and Favorite Films

Posted on January 15, 2021 | 6 comments

 

I have now viewed 35 films that were released in 1973.  A list can be found here.  I saw a lot of good to great movies and am satisfied to move on to 1974.  From the 1001 Movies List, I did not revisit The Exorcist and did not watch Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Turkish Delight, and The Mother and the Whore.  I had previously reviewed Enter the Dragon.    My Favorites List is in no particular order.  I had 13 movies rated at 9/10 so I’m just going to list all of them.

Fantastic Planet – Directed by Rene Laloux

Amarcord – Directed by Federico Fellini

Don’t Look Now – Directed by Nicolas Roeg

The Wicker Man – Directed by Robin Hardy

Love and Anarchy – Directed by Lina Wertmuller

Papillon – Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner

Day for Night – Directed by Francois Truffaut

The Sting – Directed by George Roy Hill

American Graffiti – Directed by George Lucas

The Friends of Eddie Coyle – Directed by Peter Yates

 

Paper Moon – Directed by Peter Bogdanovich

Badlands – Directed by Terrence Malick

Spirit of the Beehive – Directed by Victor Erice

 

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Posted in 1973, Top Ten Lists

Sleeper (1973)

Posted on January 15, 2021 | 5 comments

Sleeper
Directed by Woody Allen
Written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman
1973/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/My DVD collection
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Miles Monroe: My brain? It’s my second favorite organ!

One of the last of Woody Allen’s silly movies, this combines slapstick humor, random gags, and satire.  It’s pretty funny and we find out that Mid-20th Century Modern architecture still convinces as futuristic in 2173.

Miles Munroe (Allen) was a clarinetist and health food store owner way back in 1973. Complications of a minor surgery cause his body to be cryogenically frozen.  He is illegally thawed out in 2173 by scientists who want to use him to help revolutionaries in the Underground infiltrate the secret Aires project.  The above ground society is ruled by a Great Leader and questions nothing.  The conformists are also frigid and have sex with the help of an orgasmatron machine.

Miles undergoes many obstacles on his way to Aries project disguised as a robot.  First he shows up at the door of Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton), a conformist and very bad poet.  She is terrified but eventually helps him.

En route Luna becomes a member of the underground and convinces a very reluctant Miles to become involved in revolution.

This movie is one gag after another – if one doesn’t make you laugh, the next probably will.  We see Allen taking on increasingly sophisticated projects from a production point of view and this looks pretty fabulous. Recommended for those looking for a good time.  Allen wrote the Dixieland jazz score.

This concludes my viewing for 1973. I finally got my hands on a Sleeper DVD I could play on my player the very last day!

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1973

The Three Musketeers (1973)

Posted on January 14, 2021 | 2 comments

The Three Musketeers
Directed by Richard Lester
Written by George McDonald Frasier from the novel by Alexandre Dumas
1973/US/UK
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

Lady de Winter: Your Eminence is a great player. Great enough to lose. I do not like to lose.
Cardinal Richelieu: You must suit yourself, Milady. But, if in the end you should, do it with a becoming grace.

Richard Lester’s version of the old story is a mixture of derring do with slapstick comedy and simply sumptuous production values.

The story takes place during the reign of Louis XIII.  Young D’Artagnon (Michael York) lives in the country with his father, an ex-Musketeer to the King.  He is sent off with his father’s old sword as an introduction to the current Musketeers Athos (Oliver Reed), Porthos (Frank Finlay) and Aramis (Richard Chamberlin).  He challenges each man to a duel.  This is interrupted by guards enforcing the law against dueling. At any rate, D’Artagnon is rejected as a Musketeer until he has proved himself  in combat.  But they do allow him to hang out with them.

D’Artagnan takes lodging with an old man who is married to Constance (Raquel Welch) dressmaker  to the Queen (Geraldine Chaplin).  Constance is fiercely loyal to the Queen and helps facilitate her assignations with the Duke of Buckingham.  Buckingham asks for a memento to take back to England and the Queen gives him an exquisite set of 12 diamond studs that had been a gift from the king.

Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) and his spies Rochefort (Christopher Lee) and Milady De Winter (Faye Dunaway) have been waiting for just such an opportunity.  A word to the King and the Queen is required to wear them at the next ball.  D’Artagnan is on the next ship to England to retrieve the jewels. I’ll stop there.

I saw this on original release and it was as fun now as it was then.  My plot summary does not reflect the huge amount of swordplay throughout the film.  Lester always keeps the fights interesting.  Then there is a healthy dose of slapstick mostly provided by Raquel Welch who does prat falls like a trooper.  The locations and costumes are incredible.

The cast thought it was making one movie but the studio carved it into two – this and The Four Musketeers (1974).  The cast thought in that case they should receive two salaries. One reason may be that Lester’s shooting method (multiple cameras) meant stunt work had to be kept to a minimum.  Virtually every member of the cast that fought was injured and Oliver Reed was nearly killed when he was accidentally stabbed in the neck.

Print on Amazon Prime is much sharper

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Posted in 1973

O Lucky Man! (1973)

Posted on January 14, 2021 | Leave a comment

O Lucky Man!
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Written by David Sherwin from an original idea by Malcolm McDowell
1973/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

 

Prison Governor: I’ve sensed the spark of idealism in you and I can move mountains, you know that, hmm. Oh, for a man like you, Travis. Michael, for a boy like you, you’re still young! Everything is possible. The world is your oyster. I can see you stripped, building motorways. You have eyes like Steve McQueen. Did anyone ever tell you that?

 

Lindsay Anderson produces a truly unique film that will leave me scratching my head until I see it again.

The story follows the life of young Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) from his first job through his being cast as an actor.  The story is interspersed with Alan Price and his band playing appropriate songs in front of a neutral background for a kind of “Greek Chorus” effect. The story is told in episodes and the same actors reappear, some many times, in various episodes.   The story gets more incredible and fantastical as it proceeds.

The movie is three hours long and I will give only the briefest outline of the plot.  Eager, naive young Mick Travis gets his first job as an apprentice coffee salesman.  The regional salesman for the Northeast has flown the coop.  The training manager (Rachel Roberts) has taken a liking to him and suggests that he be promoted into that job.

Mick proceeds North.  He takes up lodgings and is friendly with his next-door neighbor, a tailor (Ralph Richardson).  He makes one big sale and suddenly is given the entire territory of Scotland in addition.  At parting, the tailor gives him a golden suit and this advice: “Try not to die like a dog.”

En route to Scotland Mick has numerous adventures, many of them life threatening.  He hitch-hikes away from the latest in a van where he finds Patricia (Helen Mirren) hiding under a blanket.  They immediately fall in love.

Patricia’s father (Ralph Richardson) is a ruthless copper tycoon.  Mick decides to see if he can insinuate himself into the company.  He is immediately hired as the tycoon’s assistant and gets involved in an unsavory deal to sell a chemical weapon to an African country.  The father frames Mick for a crime and he goes to jail.

After being released from prison, Mick feels strangely happy though he has hit rock bottom as far as his financial situation is concerned.  He tries to talk a despondent housewife (Rachel Roberts) out of killing herself.

The next morning, he meets a man who is handing out flyers for an open audition for a part in a film.  The film director (played by Lindsay Anderson) thinks Mick has something special.  He takes several head shots but Mick doesn’t find anything to smile about.  The director smacks him in the head with a script.  Mick slowly breaks into a smile and finds himself in ecstasy.

This movie is three hours long and the time flew by, so that itself is something.  Consider that I left many, many incidents out of the plot summary.  The acting is excellent and the production is excellent.  The social satire is sharp.  I think I need another viewing to really wrap my head around it though.  And I just might do it.

I can’t believe black face was still being used in 1973.  But maybe that just went with the same actor being used in different parts.  It’s only in one segment.

 

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Posted in 1973

Soylent Green (1973)

Posted on January 12, 2021 | 8 comments

Soylent Green
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Written by Stanley R. Greenberg from a novel by Harry Harrison
1973/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

 

Det. Thorn: I know, Sol, you’ve told me a hundred times before. People were better, the world was better…
Sol: Ah, people were always lousy… But there was a world, once.

Golden-age director Richard Fleischer delivers a solid dystopian sci-fi classic.

The year is 2022.  The place is New York City, pop. 40 million.  Most people appear to be homeless and sleep crammed together like sardines anywhere they can.  Pollution and overpopulation have destroyed Mother Nature.  Fresh food of any kind is a scarce, super expensive luxury.  The masses survive on synthetic food – namely, Soylents Red, Yellow, and Green.

Detective Thorn (Charlton Heston) and his “book” Sol (Edward G. Robinson) investigate the murder of William R. Samuelson (Joseph Cotten), a very rich man who lives with gorgeous “furniture” Leigh Taylor-Young.  “Furniture” describes an attractive young woman who comes with an apartment and is there to fulfill every desire of the occupant.

Once Sol’s research finds that Samuelson was a Member of the Board of Soylent, Inc., the game is on.  Thorn’s investigations take us out to the dystopian world of the masses.  I’m sure all my readers know the big reveal but I’m not going to be the one to spoil it.  With Chuck Connors as Samuelsons’s body guard.

I’m not a big fan of Charlton Heston but he did OK.  Some of the special effects and crowd scenes are fantastic.  But the real joy of the movie for me was seeing Edward G. Robinson in his final performance in a career that had started in 1916.  He brought class and passion to all his parts.  If the subject matter sounds intriguing, I would go for it.

 

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Posted in 1973

Mean Streets (1973)

Posted on January 11, 2021 | 6 comments

Mean Streets
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Written by Martin Scorsese and Matdik Martin
1973/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Charlie: Don’t be smart, Johnny.
Johnny Boy: What do you mean? I ain’t smart. I’m stupid. Remember? I’m so stupid you gotta look out for me. Right? Right?

Martin Scorsese comes into his own by going back to his roots.

The story is set in New York City in the mid-1960’s.  Charlie (Harvey Keitel) is a debt collector for his uncle.  He knows how to survive on the mean streets of Little Italy yet is haunted by his Catholic indocrination.  He gets along well with the uncle who wants to set him up in his own restaurant.

His best friend is the unhinged, possibly psychopathic, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro).  He owes money to everybody dumb enough to give him a loan.  He owes $1800 plus interest to tough guy Michael Longo.  Michael begins to feel like he is being played for a chump and is counting on Charlie to get his money for him.

Charlie gets mixed up in this mess partly out of friendship for Johnny Boy and partly because of his his intimate relationship with Teresa (Amy Richardson), Johnny Boy’s cousin.  As the story goes on Johnny Boy becomes more and more erratic and starts fooling around with guns.  But Charlie can’t seem to abandon him.  Let’s just say none of this is going to end well.

There are some amazing complex shots and sequences in this movie that show Scorsese’s assured mastery over filmmaking.  Add to some fine acting – this was De Niro’s first collaboration with the director – and fabulous production values.  The movie contains Scorsese’s signature oldies score, and his themes around Catholicism and machismo.  Not Scorsese’s best film by any means but nevertheless recommended.

 

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This may be the last 1001 List film I watch for 1973.  One time with The Exorcist was enough for me.  I am really sad I can’t find Sleeper anywhere except for purchase in DVD Region 2 editions.  Based on descriptions, I’m skipping The Mother and the Whore, Turkish Delight and Pat Garret and Billy the Kid unless I get some reader recommendations to change my mind. I’m on the last lap of 1973 which will  “end” on January 15.

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1973